1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to power air blower nozzles, and more particularly, to a hand held nozzle, for use with an air blower, for directing a high velocity sheet of air onto a surface, such as that of a motor vehicle's body, in order to displace water or other loose matter from the surface.
2. Description of Prior Art
In the case of a motor vehicle, after washing the vehicle for example, it is necessary to proactively dry the finish of the vehicle to avoid visible water spots which would be a result of allowing the water to evaporate from the vehicle's finish. If allowed to occur, these water spots will, at the very least, keep the freshly washed vehicle from looking clean. In more severe cases, contaminants in the water may actually cause the vehicle's finish to be damaged, requiring costly repairs ranging from buffing the finish to actual repainting.
The most common method for removing water from a vehicle's surface after hand washing is to hand dry the surface with a towel or other cloth. This method requires that the user pass the towel or cloth over the vehicle's surface in such a manner that the towel or cloth stays in contact with the surface so as to both displace and absorb the water from the surface during the motion. When the towel or cloth becomes saturated with water, the user must pause to wring the water from the towel or cloth, usually by twisting the towel or cloth with his/her hands. Once the towel or cloth has become saturated the first time, more pauses are required to wring the water from the towel or cloth as it becomes saturated more quickly than when it was dry, making the process of drying the surface very time consuming. Additionally, since moisture remains in the towel or cloth even after the wringing, the towel or cloth is likely to leave "streaks" of water on the vehicle's finish after the initial saturation.
Another method of hand drying is by using a chamois. While a chamois is, by definition, a piece of soft leather, for simplicity I will use the term chamois to also encompass the sections of man made material that are marketed as substitutes for genuine chamios'. The chamois is used in the same manner as a towel or cloth. Many people choose to use a chamois to dry their vehicle because chamois' are normally very soft and, therefore, perceived to be gentle to the vehicle's finish. Additionally, a chamois absorbent properties help to reduce the amount of streaking on the vehicle's finish, compared to that which occurs with towels and cloths. However, these same absorbent properties also make it more difficult to wring the water from a chamois than from a towel or cloth because the chamois tends to hold the water in. Chamois' can also be difficult to work with as they have a tendency to "roll" during the wiping process, requiring the user to pause from drying in order to unroll the chamois.
Any hand drying, no matter what the material used, also carries with it the danger of damaging the vehicle's finish during the wiping process. This can be caused by wiping any grit or dirt that might be on the vehicle's surface, or on the towel, cloth or chamois, across the finish thereby scratching the finish. For this reason, care must be taken to ensure that the vehicle's surface is thoroughly clean prior to beginning to hand dry. Also, it is important that the towel, cloth or chamois is not dropped onto the ground as it may pick up dirt or grit from the ground which could then scratch the vehicle's finish.
Another method of drying a vehicle is by blowing air across the vehicle in order to displace the water from the vehicle's surface, thereby drying the surface. This method is used by most automatic car washes to dry a vehicle after it has passed through the washing apparatus. In this case, the vehicle passes through a sheet of high velocity air directed at an angle toward the surface of the vehicle. The angle is such that the water is displaced from one end of the vehicle to the other and then off the end of the vehicle. This works well in most cases, however, because the contours of vehicles' surfaces are not all alike, a standardized blower designed to work on all vehicles is not optimum for all vehicles and, therefore, requires that the vehicle be hand dried after passing through the drying apparatus. While this is basically an effective means of drying a vehicle, it is only available at automatic car washes, and many people do not like to take their vehicles through automatic car washes for fear of the vehicle being damaged by the cleaning and/or drying apparatus.
At this point in time, there is no effective hand held method for displacing water from a vehicle's surface using forced air. While many conventional blowers, leaf blowers and the like, expel air at high velocities, present nozzles do not provide a wide, controllable pattern of air, leaving them inefficient for displacing water from a large surface. Also, the air outlet of most nozzles is located at the end of the nozzle making it inconvenient to clear a surface which is not situated below the user.
Accordingly, there has been a need for a means to thoroughly dry a surface quickly and conveniently, without causing any damage to the finish and without leaving streaks on the finish. The present invention fulfills this need.